Post 45 - Ironman Wales race morning

Ironman Wales in Tenby, Pembrokeshire, began with a 5am alarm. 5am is early compared with the 3:30am alarm required at Ironman UK in Bolton. Ironman UK starts at 6am and is a bit of a logistical nightmare. Ironman Wales starts at 7am and is a logistical breeze. I went straight down and got my porridge, honey, raisins, toast and peanut butter. Our B&B were absolutely brilliant – they couldn’t have been more helpful in terms of allowing me access to the kitchen’s fridge for storing my food, and allowing me access to the microwave and toaster. One less thing to worry about. Breakfast was a quick affair, polished off with a calcium tablet to help my muscles later in the day.

I still had huge doubts about my knee. I’d developed a sore right knee earlier in the week. It was the old problem of pain when trying to put weight on it when it was bent. Usually this problem was specific to my left knee, but my right knee had flared up this time, unbelievably just a few days before race day.

I’d been taking anti-inflammatories and icing it during the week. Yesterday at the Ironman Expo in Tenby I’d had both knees taped up. I figured it wouldn’t do any harm. Anyway, at this stage there was nothing more I could do. One of several things would happen: I’d get through the swim and then wouldn’t make it through T1 if my knee gave up. Or I’d get a few miles into the bike, or maybe halfway through, and my knee would give up. Or I’d make it through the bike and then wouldn’t be able to run. Or I’d have to abandon the run halfway through. Or I might finish. I might even still finish well enough to qualify for Kona. I had no idea. It’s a terrible way to go into a race, with no confidence in your body. You want to go in feeling good and positive. You don’t want to have any doubts.

Before the race I had been putting together best-case and worst-case finish times, assuming my knee held out and allowed me to finish. I thought 10:15 would qualify for Kona. I thought my worst-case times were 1:05 for the swim, 10 minute for T1, 5:50 for the bike, 5 minutes for T2, and 3:30 for the marathon. This would give me a 10:40 finish. But I knew that these worst-case times were fairly conservative. I thought if I was somehow able to do it and qualify for Kona, it would be brilliant. Wales is the first qualifying race for Kona in October 2015, so it would give me a whole year to prepare. I could book the flights early, have my pick of accommodation on Hawaii, get everything sorted, and focus my entire 2015 on Kona.

Then I told myself to shut up, that Ironman Wales was the toughest Ironman in the world, and that I had to get through it first, and to get through it really well, before I could even start to think about Kona.

After breakfast, it was straight down to T1 to put my drinks and Garmin computer on the bike, as well as give the tyres a last blast of air. T1 was literally a stone’s throw from the B&B. We had the most amazing view over the T1 tents and bike racks. All day on the Saturday we watched as the bike racks filled up. Despite the good weather, most people made use of the supplied yellow waterproof bike “pyjamas” overnight, so T1 was a sea of yellow. The pictures below show how T1 changes during race weekend...

 

 

 

 

I had no last-minute dramas at the bike, then went back to the B&B to get my wetsuit on. I decided I’d only put the bottom half on, and then make the 10-minute walk down to the beach, where I’d get the top half on. The wetsuit is tight and restrictive on land, but when in the water, it is magic. Like a massively buoyant torpedo.

There was an athlete’s parade down through the town and onto the beach, but I didn’t concern myself with that and made my own way down, support crew in tow. I didn’t want to get stuck behind 2000 nervous, slow-moving, wetsuit-clad triathletes. I wanted to be on the beach in good time. Just before the beach, I got the top half of my wetsuit on. These wetsuits are a nightmare to put on. They take ages, and you end up burning energy, sweating, and getting sore arms from pulling them on. Putting the bottom half on, and then putting the top half on some time later, helped to keep me fresh.

I walked down the zig-zag cliff path to the beach, and racked my purple bag. The purple bag contained a pair of shoes to get me through the 2km run from the beach to T1. This 2km run sounds ridiculous given that most races have their T1 right beside the swim exit, but this extended run to T1 is a unique feature of Wales. There must be thousands of spectators lining the roads from the beach to T1.

Anyway, I got on the beach and had a half-hearted splash in the water to get used to it. No point in getting excessively cold. I did an on-shore warm-up, windmilling my arms and stretching them behind me. There was an awesome sunrise. The sky was somewhere between pink and purple as the sun came up over the horizon, and the sea reflected this. It was awesome. Truly awesome. A favourable sign for a good day ahead, weather-wise at least…

 

 Swim warm-up in purple sea under an awesome sunrise

 

The music was blaring over the PA system, and the announcer was doing his thing, stirring up the excitement and calling the athletes into position on the beach. All manner of boats, canoes, jetskis and even the Tenby lifeboat were bobbing offshore. The cliff path was packed with spectators. The beach was busy. The sea was actually quite rough, with an onshore breeze whipping up a bit of a swell. We start in a pen on the beach, and when the gun goes, there is bedlam. Everyone sprints for the first buoy, about 20m offshore. Then you must round this buoy and make a 45-degree left turn, and then head out to the second turning buoy, about 500m away.

Penned in on the beach

 

Last year I started right in the middle, at the front, and I got absolutely beaten to a pulp in the first 20 minutes of the swim. You could hardly even call it a swim, it was more a fight for survival. I took on a lot of salt water last year and was retching and gasping for air. It was tough. I didn’t want a similar experience this year. Last year the first 45-degree turn was further offshore, and you had to swim to it. This year it was only 20m offshore, and you could wade to it. So my plan was to place myself at the very front of the pen of athletes on the beach, as far to the left as possible. Then I would sprint/wade/fight my way to the buoy, take a 90 degree left, continue to wade parallel to the shore for another 30-40m, and then start my swim, away off to the left of the main group and out of trouble. I also reasoned that being shore-side of the main group would give me some shelter from the waves.

By now, we were almost at 7am. Almost time for the race to start...